My boy Don.. Part I.



Browsing Facebook, an infrequent pastime (hmpft;  I have much better things to do with my time, no judgment of course…), I click through various links and drill down here and there and happen on a previously unseen page for my boy, Don.  Damn, I think he moved to Nebraska. 

I feel an immediate loss.  He’s lived in Oregon since college, transplanting from Nebraska a long, long time ago.  I am bereft.  I’m nonplussed at this feeling.

I shoot off an email.  Get a reply post haste.  Phew, he’s still here. I can't really express this but  Oregon would be emptier without him. 

How do you know when you first meet someone that they’re going to impact your life so tremendously?  I had no clue the first time I laid eyes on Don Willey, a new friend then of my (first and likely only) husband.  We were at a trade show?  My husband had a landscaping display, (he was truly gifted in this trade) and people were coming by to take a look.  Ah, those were the days when I was still in love my husband.  Enough said, huh?  Anyway, we’re taking in the show, baby on my hip, my precious and chubster Tyler, not quite one year old. 

It was a busy scene as I gazed across the crowd and focused on some totally unknown man rushing toward us in a scary manner.  I admit, crazed new mother, protective hormones kicking in.  Here was Don, a lover of babies, wanting to stroke her fat little cheek (the closest contact I would grudgingly allow) a crazed man with such enthusiasm under a pile of strawberry blond hair and robin’s egg blue eyes.

In that moment, I hadn't a glimmer of his impact on my life.    

Possibly part I.  

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